Butt Covering in NO

Guest posting at Malkin's, Bryan Preston of Junk Yard Blog writes:

The JYB guy here, best known most recently for blogging about buses, specifically the hundreds and hundreds of buses that the city of New Orleans failed to use to evacuate its most disadvantaged citizens out of harm's way before hurricane Katrina hit last week. Tens of thousands of New Orleans' residents could have been spared the worst of the past week and many might still be alive today if the city had actually activated its plan to use its own vehicles--school and commuter buses--to give them a ride. But the plan was never activated, though the city was fully aware of the plight of its citizens after hurricane Ivan nearly struck it last year. And of course the city had known that it was sinking into the gooey soil of the Mississippi delta for decades. New Orleans knew that it was living on borrowed time. But it partied on, eating, drinking and being merry, knowing that tomorrow it might well die.

Instead of acknowledging the faults that lie at city level and stepping in to organize relief efforts, Louisiana and New Orleans officials spent most of last week lashing out at the Bush administration, though its response was three times faster than the response to hurricane Andrew just 13 years ago. Government actually got quicker at doing something, in spite of the massive increase in the number of lawyers on the public dime in the intervening years. The locals blamed the feds even though the administration, whatever its faults, was ahead of all local officials when it came to declaring a state of emergency and requesting a mandatory evacuation. A massive butt-covering exercise is underway in Louisiana as I write, so massive it is second only to the actual relief and law and order efforts going on in the vast Katrina destruction zone.

Read the rest of it. It's devastating.

Comments

[prairie biker]

You know, I was thinking. I made an earlier comment about educating citizens to prepare and react to extreme circumstances. Why don't we have things like this for our public officials? Shouldn't these guys have been required to learn how they should respond as well as be briefed how to request federal services?

Just a thought.

[gail]

You think they didn't know? I kind of assume that they just blew it off until it was too late.

[gail]

I suppose we'll never know the answer to that question, since the officials aren't going to admit they messed up and left a few thousand people to die.

[Jake]

Now this is a piece that I can agree with.. and it needs no comment from me... Right on.